Re: any other Stemples out there?

The surnames you mentioned in your post of last year are not totally strange to the area in which the Stemples that first settled in Monongalia county (in what is now known as Preston county) near the Fairfax stone corner between Maryland & West Virginia.

Both the names Coontz/Koontz/Kunze/Kunce and Shafer/Shaffer are in fact fairly common.

Admittedly your data is so sketchy that in would have to attach rather earlier than the typical memory of the current generation.If you have come upon any additional information regarding given names of spouses or if you can plot out an approximate time line for any of the individual persons you mention it would be easier to hunt for matches.

Several in the first two or three generations of the Stemple family in Preston had more than one wife and it is quite possible one that you have only a surname for might be an earlier one, now forgotten or perhaps a later one for whom memory has not been kept alive because of not being a direct ancestor.

Any information such as occupations or religious connections or stories of early wanderings as the generations moved along might be helpful.

Basically the more one knows the greater the chance of finding something that will match and lead to a fruitful search.

Worth noting, there were at least two major family lines that developed in Maryland, one in Frederick county and another that seems to have remained stationary in Washington county for perhaps thirty years before that family leaped over Frederick to Preston.Also, there have been several later emigrations into the U.S. with given names similar to the early ones that may confuse the hunt, not making it impossible, just more of a challenge.